Recommend me a laptop

I'm in the market for a new laptop, and probably am looking for something in the $1000 - $1500 range (can go up to $2000 if needed). Just want something I can play games with when I'm not at home (in addition to general usage and whatever).

Probably be playing stuff like Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and Team Fortress 2 most of the time. Would be nice if it could run those at max settings at 60 FPS. I suppose I would prefer a dedicated video card.

I bought a Alienware m14x a year or so ago. Just last week the hinge broke ( or something) and it started damaging the LCD. A call to Dell reveals that they consider that normal wear and tear and want $500'to fix it.

A friend has a new Lenovo y500 and he loves it. It's been able to handle most games that es thrown at it.

To toss my 2 cents into the ring, I'd recommend Sager and MSI up front first, then Alienware a somewhat distant second (distant only because of cost).

Sagers tend to look excessively bland and boring (think IBM ThinkPad, but with blue instead of red), whereas MSI and Alienware laptops are much, much more "bling" in the sense that they have flashing lights and the whole hoopla of being a gaming laptop.

Diablo 3 is available for the Mac. The raw HW is also capable, with TF2 clocking 62fps at the highest setting in Windows. Whether you want to pay at the high end of your price range for the SSD, Retina display, battery life, etc, is up to you.

Some of the Samsung Chronos range looks good, specifically the NP780Z5E.I'm waiting for the flagship spec to be available in my market but it looks like a value package.

Good points: - Subframe + aluminium skin construction - more robust than the form-over-durability 'unibody' MacBook Pro. - No useless Retina display (sure, it's nice if all you do is spend time in Aperture, Safari and Textedit as I guess most 'tech journalists' do) - just a practical FHD and it's a touchscreen to boot. - QC i7-3635QM. Not the fastest but probably adequate. - You can fit an SSD later. - 8770M matches 650M on MacBook Pro for performance - and unlike on a non-retina Pro, it's quite probable that you'll actually be able to spool up that GPU without the machine attempting to kill itself. - It's definitely within your budget ($1200)

For a gaming-intended system I'd recommend against anything with a Quadro like the Elitebooks or the Precisions (though the 8570W and the M4700 are excellent machines - the HP being more excellent) - though I don't know if the entry ATI FirePros would far any worse than the Quadros in this respect.

Diablo 3 is available for the Mac. The raw HW is also capable, with TF2 clocking 62fps at the highest setting in Windows. Whether you want to pay at the high end of your price range for the SSD, Retina display, battery life, etc, is up to you.

I like Macs in general (though I'd never buy one), but I almost never recommend them for people who do any form of gaming. I know that tons of people use them for gaming, but I just have my own personal reservation against them for gaming. They heat up too much for my liking. I'm not one to complain about heat and fan noise, but because Apple went down the route of "passive" cooling over putting in 4 fans into the chassis, I just feel safer with a MSI or Sager for gaming. For everything else, though, the MBP is a good contender.

But as OrangeCream stated, it's a good package hardware-wise, especially if weight and size are major factors in your decision.

For a gaming-intended system I'd recommend against anything with a Quadro like the Elitebooks or the Precisions (though the 8570W and the M4700 are excellent machines - the HP being more excellent) - though I don't know if the entry ATI FirePros would far any worse than the Quadros in this respect.

The FirePro and Quatro options are for the Mobile workstation W's.

The Elitebook 8570p comes with one of two different graphics systems. either an Intel 4000 or an AMD 7570M. Otherwise I would never have mentioned it for a gaming laptop. With a good screen it will run about 1750ish. Do not upgrade the memory or HDD, HP's prices on those is outrageous. Fortunately it is extraordinarily simple to upgrade those yourself with after market parts. The base unit has an i5, but you can get an i7. I personally doubt that D3 at max settings will even max an i5, it certainly does not on my desktop. The build quality is generally superb and can take a lot of abuse. And, if you are really worried about needing max uptime, you can get a three year on-site next business day warranty with accident damage protection. So you are in the middle of no-where ozarks and, drop it on a Wednesday and break the screen, you are gaming again on Thursday after the on-site tech fixes it for you.

Just be sure to use those coupon code, and or haggle with an HP sales rep.

For a gaming-intended system I'd recommend against anything with a Quadro like the Elitebooks or the Precisions (though the 8570W and the M4700 are excellent machines - the HP being more excellent) - though I don't know if the entry ATI FirePros would far any worse than the Quadros in this respect.

The FirePro and Quatro options are for the Mobile workstation W's.

The Elitebook 8570p comes with one of two different graphics systems. either an Intel 4000 or an AMD 7570M. Otherwise I would never have mentioned it for a gaming laptop.

Ah OK. I forget about the p's. 7570M's pretty weak-sauce however so either way probably best not mentioned.

I posted to both Retina and non Retina options in case the OP thought it was useless.

Myself I opted for the 13" rMBP because I didn't think it was worthless.

Well, it's not like you have any other choices, the way you are. I'm curious - do you ever even bother to at least try other machines or are you Apple 4 life? I always find the strongest opinions come from people who have never had anything else comparable (for SRP or core specs), the 'brains in eyeballs' 'I'm so creative' crowd, or people who actually don't know Windows as well as OS X.

I posted to both Retina and non Retina options in case the OP thought it was useless.

Myself I opted for the 13" rMBP because I didn't think it was worthless.

Well, it's not like you have any other choices, the way you are. I'm curious - do you ever even bother to at least try other machines or are you Apple 4 life? I always find the strongest opinions come from people who have never had anything else comparable (for SRP or core specs), the 'brains in eyeballs' 'I'm so creative' crowd, or people who actually don't know Windows as well as OS X.

Are you just a jerk?

I own a ThinkPad X200, a Dell Optiplex 755, a 2006 iMac, and now a 2012 MBP. I work with 24 core Opteron and Xeon systems in both Windows and Ubuntu.

It seems that virtually every hardware recommendation from you is for Apple hardware. Even in threads where the OP explicitly says they don't want a Mac. Makes sense, considering that you are an Apple shareholder. Yes, I know that's a logical fallacy, but screw that, it does provide a lot of context to your recommendations.

Ah OK. I forget about the p's. 7570M's pretty weak-sauce however so either way probably best not mentioned.

Holy crap I was confusing/misread it with a 7970m. I take back my recommendation to use it for gaming! You would be better off with a mid-range FirePro or Quatro from the W's. The 7570m is better than an Intel 4000 but not by enough to make it worth getting over a better graphics chip.

I do not ever recall having to work on a Clevo based laptop. This says either they have a very high build quality or such low sales for it to be statistically improbable for me to have come across one.

As for support, I have had a mixed bag from all major vendors. One time I had an HP service manager calling me to make sure I tested everything befor letting the customer use it, and then talked to the customer for over an hour to with me onsite (and on the clock) to make sure everything was perfect. Another time even getting them to ship out a new HDD that had clearly failed was like pulling teeth. Dell and Lenovo are pretty similar. The few Asus ones I have worked on, have been pretty painless. But those have been mostly replace the HDD then start the system on a reimage type repairs, that if it takes you more then 20 min you are doing it wrong.

For the least trouble, get a business class warranty with accident protection. The only time I have seen one of those refused was due to a stupid college kid getting very drunk and pissing all over his new 1500$ laptop. They classified that as non-warrentyable biohazard damage.

Most consumer level gaming laptops will not give you the option for business class coverage. But, you can often find similar hardware to a gaming laptop in the upper level business class from HP and Dell. The hardest part will be finding one with a good gaming video card. They tend to come and go randomly as options with little rhyme or reason.

I posted to both Retina and non Retina options in case the OP thought it was useless.

Myself I opted for the 13" rMBP because I didn't think it was worthless.

Well, it's not like you have any other choices, the way you are. I'm curious - do you ever even bother to at least try other machines or are you Apple 4 life? I always find the strongest opinions come from people who have never had anything else comparable (for SRP or core specs), the 'brains in eyeballs' 'I'm so creative' crowd, or people who actually don't know Windows as well as OS X.

Are you just a jerk?

I own a ThinkPad X200, a Dell Optiplex 755, a 2006 iMac, and now a 2012 MBP. I work with 24 core Opteron and Xeon systems in both Windows and Ubuntu.

Draw a new set of conclusions, please.

↓ Moderation: (show post)

I didn't realise the choice of Apple came from zero relevant experience, not Applezombiesm. My apologies - the two manifestations are often so interchangeable so as for me to get them wrong sometimes.

I posted to both Retina and non Retina options in case the OP thought it was useless.

Myself I opted for the 13" rMBP because I didn't think it was worthless.

Well, it's not like you have any other choices, the way you are. I'm curious - do you ever even bother to at least try other machines or are you Apple 4 life? I always find the strongest opinions come from people who have never had anything else comparable (for SRP or core specs), the 'brains in eyeballs' 'I'm so creative' crowd, or people who actually don't know Windows as well as OS X.

Are you just a jerk?

I own a ThinkPad X200, a Dell Optiplex 755, a 2006 iMac, and now a 2012 MBP. I work with 24 core Opteron and Xeon systems in both Windows and Ubuntu.

Draw a new set of conclusions, please.

I didn't realise the choice of Apple came from zero relevant experience, not Applezombiesm. My apologies - the two manifestations are often so interchangeable so as for me to get them wrong sometimes.

What is wrong with you? Can you not read?

The choice of Apple is my own preference, and the OP's selection criteria makes a 15" MBP a good match:$1k->$1.5kDedicated GPUStarcraft 2, Diablo 3, and TF2Looks plain

For just a little more ($1.7k) you can get 256g SSD and a 2880x1800 IPS screen.

It's got excellent battery life, good weight, solid build, and good performance. By no means is a Mac somehow a bad or brainless choice, as you keep implying.

I'm in the market for a new laptop and am strongly leaning Lenovo, I've had good experiences with them in the past. I was leaning Thinkpad until I saw that the Ideapad Y500 has a resolution of 1920x1080 something that appeals to me highly. I'll be doing minimal current gaming on this, maybe the occasional game of Diablo or WoW. I'll still be playing my backlog of GoG games, all of which should run fine on just about anything.

And I'm eying a refurb Macbook Pro w/ Retina, but that is the extreme top end and I'll be using Linux for most of the time and I'm have really checked to see if there is any compatibility problems with them

Outside of Lenovo, what are some good high resolution laptops that I should look at? I don't *think* I want a 13" screen, but I might be swayed if the laptop is worth it.

Outside of Lenovo, what are some good high resolution laptops that I should look at? I don't *think* I want a 13" screen, but I might be swayed if the laptop is worth it.

If you're looking at Linux/Unix, the Lenovo is your best "blind" bet. I say "blind" because you probably shouldn't have to think about it: Lenovos are quite well known to work well with most every popular *nix distro that wasn't compiled in some teenager's parent's basement.

The alternative is the HP Elitebooks. They're pricey (more so than the Lenovos), but I feel that they're much better than Lenovos in terms of build quality and overall hardware specs. That said, the Lenovo is your best bang for buck, and when considering Linux as your primary OS (and Windows for games) it's almost a no-brainer IMO.

You can barely fit 4 terminals into 1366x768 and still have them readable.

In any case, I moved from the X200 -> MBPr; I had considered a MBA (1440x900 is nice but the Retina display was nicer) mostly because I like the light weight and SSD, both of which was also available with the MBPr.

I decided that for an extra $300 I would up my resolution, double the SSD to 256gb, and max out the memory at 8GB. I do sometimes wonder if 1440x900 would have been sufficient, since at 3.5lb the MBPr is noticeably heavier than my X200.

I'm in the market for a new laptop and am strongly leaning Lenovo, I've had good experiences with them in the past. I was leaning Thinkpad until I saw that the Ideapad Y500 has a resolution of 1920x1080 something that appeals to me highly. I'll be doing minimal current gaming on this, maybe the occasional game of Diablo or WoW. I'll still be playing my backlog of GoG games, all of which should run fine on just about anything.

And I'm eying a refurb Macbook Pro w/ Retina, but that is the extreme top end and I'll be using Linux for most of the time and I'm have really checked to see if there is any compatibility problems with them

Outside of Lenovo, what are some good high resolution laptops that I should look at? I don't *think* I want a 13" screen, but I might be swayed if the laptop is worth it.

Retina support on the retina display is...okay. It'll take some hacking and sometimes text will just be unreasonably small. You don't have the HiDPI support that you get with OS X. You can get a 1600x900 in a 14" screen with the T430(s), which is around the same DPI as a 15" 1920x1200 screen. However, if you're looking to go higher end, I'd definitely wait a couple months for Haswell. The graphics are supposed to be a noticeable bump over Ivy Bridge. The T440 or whatever they end up numbering it as will be a fantastic machine. Granted, Haswell will have an even more noticeable difference in the newer Retina MBPs, though with the loss of fantastic Linux support.

If you get the retina MBP, Linux in a VM is also easy. Sun has a free VirtualBox VM I use for that purpose.

Bare metal Linux is a major pain in the ass on Macs, though. It's become easier now that Windows 8 has made the presence of EFI much more common in the PC world, thereby forcing Linux distro developers to include EFI booting in installer images, but it's still a pain. Mostly because of closed source/outright non-existent drivers. In particular, modern Macs use Broadcom for wireless, and Broadcom is the WORST manufacturer of wifi chipsets (or possibly even any hardware at all) when it comes to open source.

I'm in the market for a new laptop and am strongly leaning Lenovo, I've had good experiences with them in the past. I was leaning Thinkpad until I saw that the Ideapad Y500 has a resolution of 1920x1080 something that appeals to me highly. I'll be doing minimal current gaming on this, maybe the occasional game of Diablo or WoW. I'll still be playing my backlog of GoG games, all of which should run fine on just about anything.

And I'm eying a refurb Macbook Pro w/ Retina, but that is the extreme top end and I'll be using Linux for most of the time and I'm have really checked to see if there is any compatibility problems with them

Outside of Lenovo, what are some good high resolution laptops that I should look at? I don't *think* I want a 13" screen, but I might be swayed if the laptop is worth it.

Asus makes pretty good stuff, IME. Heck, I've got an Ultrabook sitting next to me that a client dropped onto a stone tile floor twice, finally killing the HD. I replaced the HD and my kid's used it for 2 years. I finally gave him my old gaming laptop instead and am about to sell this one; for a somewhat abused system, it's shockingly good.

Just a data point for you but maybe worthwhile: I set up a client with an Ideapad Y500 recently. I was impressed with the quality. Many of the lower end consumer systems have been ... flimsy, historically. I can't say I found that to be the case with the Y500.

You can customize a couple different brands at almost cost, so you can get the 256GB SSD, as much RAM as you want, any CPU you want for a good price. I am not too sure about their customer support though.

An example is this Clevo P151EM: 15 inch, any i5 or i7, GTX 670MX 3GB for ~1300. Add your SSD and more RAM, customize how you want for whatever you budget allows.

Diablo 3 is available for the Mac. The raw HW is also capable, with TF2 clocking 62fps at the highest setting in Windows. Whether you want to pay at the high end of your price range for the SSD, Retina display, battery life, etc, is up to you.

Retina display is a bad idea for gaming. Ideally you want to run games at native resolution, and the MBP's native resolution is too high for even the GT650 to handle well. Gaming is probably one of the few areas where a 1366x768 screen is still an advantage.

Diablo 3 is available for the Mac. The raw HW is also capable, with TF2 clocking 62fps at the highest setting in Windows. Whether you want to pay at the high end of your price range for the SSD, Retina display, battery life, etc, is up to you.

Retina display is a bad idea for gaming. Ideally you want to run games at native resolution, and the MBP's native resolution is too high for even the GT650 to handle well. Gaming is probably one of the few areas where a 1366x768 screen is still an advantage.

Did you even read the part where they were getting 62fps at the highest settings at default resolution? At 1920x1080 they were getting 128fps, and I'm sure if you set it to, as you say, 1366x768, they would be getting a couple hundred more FPS. They did note that OS X was getting half the framerate, so obviously running at 1920x1080 or below would be recommended.

So the hardware is sufficient at reasonable resolutions of meeting the OP requirements.

It doesn't matter what they got it running to with Diablo 3, there are far more demanding games out there. Some of them will bring it to its knees at full res. 1366x768 on a higher res screen is going to look worse than 1366x768 native.

It doesn't matter what they got it running to with Diablo 3, there are far more demanding games out there. Some of them will bring it to its knees at full res. 1366x768 on a higher res screen is going to look worse than 1366x768 native.

The OP specifically mentioned TF2, Diablo 3, and SC2, and those are well supported on the Mac; and again, if full res isn't good for the user, I don't see how suggesting a 1366x768 laptop is.

Instead of playing it at a lower resolution, lets just buy a crappy screen instead.